Ninety percent of the racism in America today comes from the Democratic Party and the Left. They live off it and exploit it. It is unconscionable to the degree they do this, ruining the lives and futures of the very people they say they are helping in the process.

I am uniquely positioned to say this because I spent most of my life on the Left and was a civil rights worker in the South in my early twenties. I was also, to my everlasting regret, a donor to the Black Panther Party in the seventies.

So I have seen this personally from both sides and my conclusion is inescapable. The Left is far, far worse. They are obsessed with race in a manner that does not allow them to see straight. Further, they project racism onto others continually, exacerbating situations, which in most instances weren’t even there in the first place. From Al Sharpton to Hillary Clinton, they all do it.

Barack Obama is one of the worst offenders in this regard. Recently, in reaction to the horrid actions of the deranged, but solitary racist Dylann Root, the president claimed racism is in our DNA.

How could he possibly utter such nonsense and who was he talking about? The majority of Americans are from families that came to this country after slavery existed. Many of those were escaping oppression of their own. In my case my family was fleeing the pogroms of Eastern Europe. Many of the members of my family who stayed behind ended up gassed in Auschwitz or exterminated in Treblinka.

Is Obama telling me that racism is in my DNA? What a wretched and insulting statement. If he means that, he should tell it to me face-to-face.

If he does, I will tell him what I think. The racial situation in this country has gotten decidedly worse since he took office. And he is a great deal to blame. Ever since the beer summit it was obvious he was disingenuous and harmful on the subject of race, seeking to stir the pot when it was actually empty or nearly. His claim that if he had had a son he would look like Travyon Martin was ridiculous and self-serving in the extreme. Barack Obama is a product of the fanciest private school in Hawaii and his children go to Sidwell Friends, the fanciest school in D. C. He takes vacations on Oahu and his wife parties in Switzerland. He had as much in common with Trayvon as I do with the queen of Spain.

Appeasement defined the global conflicts of the 20th century. Time after time, America and other forces for freedom and democracy withheld their power in efforts to appease the most evil regimes in recent history. Over and over again, the policy of appeasement has ended in disaster. Now, conservative giant Victor Davis Hanson asks: why is appeasement so seductive and where will it take us in the 21st century?

In this collection of Hanson’s best columns from the last four years on the policy of appeasement today and in history, the path becomes clear. If America continues down the road of appeasement with radical Islamic groups and aggressive regimes in Russia and North Korea, the world will see a conflagration rivalling World War II.

Back in the early Paleolithic Age (2002 or so) of what we then called the blogosphere, I ran into some articles written by someone called Victor Davis Hanson. I didn’t recognize the name but it sounded a little pretentious, one of the three-word affairs like Edwin Arlington Robinson.

But, man, those articles. They were extraordinary. The author was apparently a classics scholar and able to place the affairs of the day in a vast historical context in a manner I had never read before, sort of Thucydides meets Charles Krauthammer. I couldn’t get enough of his work and, judging by the number of laudatory comments online, neither could a lot of other people.

When we were starting what was then PJ Media, I had the idea (it wasn’t brilliant — it was obvious) that we wanted Victor, above anyone, on our digital pages. We were lucky enough to get him and week-to-week got to follow him as he responded to the ongoing and escalating war against radical Islam plus all the domestic folly that ensued.

But it was war itself that was Victor’s special field of interest — he is a military historian — and that is where his work excels. I remember a few years ago going up to Stanford to help record one of his lectures for our Freedom Academy and being startled by something he said — that war, not peace, was the natural way of humanity. I felt like a dummy for not having realized this simple truth before. But that’s what you get from Victor, the unvarnished truth laid out for you. You have to face reality before you can improve it.

Which is my way of getting around to reviewing Seductions of Appeasement – a collection of Victor’s essays for this site with a new introduction by the author. It is being published as a Freedom Academy e-book on Tuesday, June 16. I recommend the book highly if you have not read the essays before (or all of them), but even morehighly if you have. A second reading places Hanson’s writing in the historical context of the last few years and they are yet more impressive in retrospect. How could he have understood all this so well in real time? It can’t just be the historian thing. (Maybe we should all bone up on the classics.)

The introduction concludes with this paragraph, vintage Victor for its pithy analysis of the terrible situation our country faces today:

Finally, the Obama administration proves wearisome, as if it is replaying a tired script of a strong power whose anxieties prompt naiveté in lieu of deterrence, and render it paralyzed before weaker but aggressive enemies. We have learned nothing from the paralyzed Carter administration. Its outreach to communists in Central America, theocrats in Iran, and geriatric Soviets ended in a chaotic world from Kabul to Teheran to Managua. The European appeasement in the 1930s of an ascendant Third Reich is the locus classicus for any historical analogy with the present American recessional: a public weary from war, record debt and economic uncertainty, apologies and euphemisms for the aggressive behavior of violent regimes, an impotent world council of nations, indifference to the victims of fascist violence, cutbacks in military readiness, and invective and charges of war-mongering leveled toward any that question such appeasement. And we know how this ends: either in a costly 11th-hour recalibration to restore deterrence—or war as violent as it was avoidable.

Seductions of Appeasement, indeed. Get the e-book, read it and try not to weep. Exalt in the great writing instead. And do something. What a book to be published only weeks before the putative signing of the Iran deal. Behind every word of Victor Davis Hanson’s is a call to action.

This blog post is part of PJ Media’s Appeasement Week, a series of blog posts celebrating the launch of Victor Davis Hanson’s new e-book, The Seductions of Appeasement. Buy it now on the PJ Store, and get 50% until June 30! Click here to read.

I am no expert in UK politics and I have never played an MP or even a barrister on TV, but I did forego a room at a Holiday Inn Express last night to stay up to the small hours watching BBC World at home, so I won’t let a lack of knowledge stop me. I think — and I hope this is not just wishful thinking — that the results of Thursday’s election in the UK augur poorly for the U.S. Democratic Party in 2016.

Now most people know by now that the SNP (Scottish National Party) swamped Scotland, winning near every parliamentary seat, and that the Conservative Party did extremely well, much better than expected, winning 331 seats and gaining a majority of Parliament without need of coalition partners.

What most people outside the UK don’t realize, however — and you certainly wouldn’t know if you read the absurd coverage in the Wall Street Journal – is how the popular vote went. (The UK has a peculiar system where a party could come in second in virtually every election and end up with no seats in Parliament.) Of the five largest parties, the Conservatives gained 36.9% of the vote, Labour 30.4%, UKIP (UK Independence Party) 12.6%, Liberal Democrats 7.9%, SNP 4.7% and Green 3.8%. (Perhaps the relatively good showing of the Greens, just making its way into the top five of umpteen parties, accounts for the relatively poor showing — only 8,419 votes en toto – for the ”Cannabis Is Safer Than Alcohol party.” Yes, they have one.)

By far the party that saw the biggest increase in popularity from the 2010 election was the EU-skeptical UKIP, which went up 9.5%, more than tripling the gain of any other party, including the SNP (Scotland is not that populous). Although UKIP has only one measly parliamentary seat due to that odd UK electoral process, this means that the two top right-leaning parties garnered a whopping 49.5% of the vote. Predictions had been for a close election. It wasn’t.

Silent majority? Seems like it was, but why? For one thing, the media, including the all-dominant Beeb, leans left in the UK and wants to convince themselves and others that they are in good shape, spouting their party line time after time until it becomes accepted cant by them and their global audience. We know that this happens here in the U.S. as well and many people get browbeaten by it, tending to keep their opinions to themselves. It may even be worse over there.

One of the inaccuracies of polling is that low-information voters tend to get overcounted because they tend not to vote in the end. At the same time, many who are keeping their heads down lest they be accused — almost always falsely — of racism, homophobia, greed, etc., are undercounted. This could well have been what happened in the UK and in the U.S. during the 2014 election when Republicans did better than expected. Will it happen in 2016? It’s not impossible, especially with the conditions in our country being what they are.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the Monster Raving Loony Party garnered only 8,398 votes in the UK election. Bragging rights once again to the Cannabis Is Safer Than Alcohol party. Take that to the pub and smoke it!

Roger L. Simon’s “Diary of a Mad Voter” will debut on PJ Media on Monday, May 11.

Because of the traffic jam that is the Republican presidential competition, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson both ended up announcing on Monday nearly at the same time.

Does it matter? No, not much. There’s a long way to go and neither is anything close to a frontrunner. Indeed, the conventional wisdom is that neither has a chance.

Is that true? I’d like to think not. We’ll certainly be following them closely on the forthcoming “Diary of a Mad Voter” (debuting Monday, May 11) because they are two of the more interesting presidential candidates to have come along in a while, largely because they are not professional politicians, but are highly accomplished in other areas. Somewhere James Madison and Thomas Jefferson must be smiling. That is exactly what they intended. (Well, we like to think so anyway.)

Both have fascinating backgrounds. Carson is something of secular saint. A boy from a single-parent family in the ‘hood, he went on to attend some of our fanciest universities and become a pediatric neurosurgeon and the first human being ever, at age 37 (!), to separate Siamese twins. What president or presidential candidate can say anything close? Does this man have the equanimity to deal with the famous three a.m. phone call? I should think so.

But, as the saying goes, the presidency “is not brain surgery” and a different skill set may apply. Carson has already had some beginner’s stumbles and his orthodox social conservatism may not serve him in the general election. On the other hand, it might. Can you imagine someone of the extreme goodness and unshakeable morality of Dr. Ben Carson faced off in debate with her shiftiness, the Queen of the Erased Emails, Ms. Hillary R. Clinton herself (or as the New York Times so primly calls her, Mrs. Clinton)? It would be an interesting spectacle.

Great idea, but here’s the problem. They don’t have ‘em. According to liberal CNN’s Don Lemon, 72 percent of African-American children are born out of wedlock. His stats were born out by the Centers for Disease Control. One can only imagine what the stats would be broken down for those Baltimore neighborhoods that were rioting. The presence of a father in the home would be a rarity indeed. And a lot of the moms are probably holding their fatherless homes together for dear life, desperately trying to make a living when their kids are pouring out of school. No one was home.

Of course, it wasn’t always that way. The black family was the bulwark of that community. So what happened? I’ll be blunt, since I was once part of the problem and equally culpable — liberal racism. Ever since the days of Lyndon Johnson, social welfare programs aimed at making the lives of “colored people” better actually made them worse. The assumption behind these programs is that African-Americans — always, constantly, forever unequal and not up to the task — needed a leg up. They got the message. Wouldn’t you?

And wouldn’t it make you pretty angry, too? Not that that’s an excuse for violence, not even faintly. The whole system is corrupt, top to bottom.

No wonder the mayor of Baltimore made the inane comment (and then pretended she didn’t) about giving the rioters space to wreak their havoc. That’s the logical extension of the Great Society, this time given forth by a black woman graduate of Oberlin. She didn’t even comprehend at the time the insult to her own people inherent in her comment. When I heard her welcoming Al Sharpton in the press conference, I cringed.

So what do we do? As a onetime white-privileged civil rights worker, I’m probably the last one to say, but we should do some serious rethinking. Some of the ideas that go back to Jack Kemp — turning these communities into tax-free empowerment zones encouraging local people to pull themselves up by the bootstraps — have never really been tried to any significant extent. And they are the only thing that makes any kind of sense to me. (I admit to being heavily influence by Dambisa Moyo’s fascinatingDead Aid that showed that African countries who fared best were the ones who received little or no foreign aid.)

But whatever we do, it shouldn’t be the same old same old. We know that doesn’t work.

Whoa! Imagine that — the Iranians having to abandon their Neanderthal chants of “Death to Israel!” cum Holocaust denial cum threats of annihilation and recognize one tiny Jewish state amidst a skadillion Islamic ones in order to get billions of dollars of sanctions relief.

You’d think any normal person would applaud this, but it’s a no-no for Barack Obama, the putative great friend of Israel. It might offend the delicate feelings of the Supreme Leader, who would simply go away, or maybe start shouting “Death to America” at the top of his lungs. (He’s probably going to go away at the end anyway, after dragging negotiations out as long as possible. But no matter.)

It seems as if a lot of people are afraid of Rubio’s honesty and morality. AIPAC is nervous. How about Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton? (Well, she’s probably got other things to worry about at the moment.)

Interestingly, the American public is more pro-Israel than ever, even with all the boycott nonsense on campuses. It could be the public is noticing, as never before, just what kind of neighborhood Israel is living in: ISIS is beheading Christians right and left; our supposedly “peace-loving” new Iranian friends are cutting a swath across the Middle East from Lebanon to Yemen while sending millions to Hamas to rebuild terror tunnels.

But, no, Rubio asking for the Iranians to accept Israel is a bridge too far for our “progressive” administration. Well, it’s not a bridge too far for me. Bravo, Marco!

Meanwhile, Ted Cruz is putting forth another amendment, tightening up the Corker-Cardin Bill. Good for him too, although you would think the Constitution already did the job with the separation of powers. (Okay, forget it. We know the administration never pays attention to that stuffy old parchment.) You go, guys!

I was with my wife and daughter in the kitchen dishing out dinner Thursday evening, discussing the news of the day, when my cell phone rang. I glanced at it — unknown number from Orange County — and, even though I feared a salesman, took the plunge and said hello.

“Am I speaking with Roger Simon?” came a hoarse male voice. Now I was sure it was a salesman.

“Are you crazy?” I was starting to shout. ”Don’t you know what’s going on? Because of the Clintons, Putin got twenty percent of America’s uranium!”

“What’re you talking about?” The man sounded genuinely puzzled. This was news to him.

“What’m I…?” By this time I was shrieking into the phone. My wife and daughter were looking at me, half amazed, half hysterical. We had just been discussing that latest putrid evolution of the Clinton scandal, but getting into the weeds with this nitwit was more than I could handle. “Oh, forget it,” I clicked off.

No, I don’t know how the “Voters for Hillary” got my cell number. (Yes, they’re real. They have a Facebook page). Maybe they just dial at random in California, figuring almost everyone’s a Hillary supporter. But it should be a warning, even though we already know it. A whole lot of people out there are clueless, even those working for candidates, and likely to remain so. I didn’t get into the 30,000 erased emails with this character but I doubt he would have heard of them. That the Clinton Foundation was suddenly refiling five years (or possibly the last decade) of taxes and that some $140 million in foreign donations had somehow mysteriously disappeared in the midst of the uranium sale would probably have gone flying over this dude’s head. One wonders if he would have cared. He was more than likely on a commission anyway. At least I hope he was. If he’s a volunteer, at this point he should be committed.

An open letter to President Obama was posted on an Iranian website (khodnevis.org) today from Dr. Mahmoud Moradkhani — the nephew of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This letter is explosive and tells Obama, in essence, that the ayatollah, his uncle, is lying in negotiations, practicing the Shia doctrine of taqiyya in which it is permissible for Muslims to lie to the infidel for the advancement of Islam. He advises the president not to pursue his nuclear deal with Iran and to focus on the atrocious human rights record of that country. But allow the doctor to speak for himself:

Dear Mr. President

I am presenting this open letter as one of the serious opponents of the Islamic republic of Iran on behalf of the like-minded opposition groups and myself. Because of my knowledge of this regime, especially of Ali Khamenei who is my uncle (my mother’s brother), I see it as my duty to inform you about this regime and the issue of nuclear negotiations with the Islamic regime of Iran.

Let me at first inform you that the regime that falsely calls itself a republic came to power in 1979 by deceiving Iranian people and the world through provoking Iranian people against the regime of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and gaining the support of the world community.

The tragedy of Cinema Rex*, believing in Khomeini’s words and then establishing a backward regime that is violent, medieval and against all international laws are all results of Iranian people and the world community being deceived. We are witnessing that not only a rich and cultured country like Iran has become a victim of this regime but also the Middle East and the whole free world. The intervention of Ali Khamenei’s regime (following Khomeini’s footsteps who had no other intention other that domination of Iraq) in Lebanon, Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria is more than obvious. As if these were not enough, he has now added the Arabian Peninsula to that list.

In any case, this regime has done great damage to Iranians and to the international community.

We can find a historical example of this kind of deception prior to the Second World War. Hitler manipulated and deceived German people and European countries and the hesitation in addressing the problem with Hitler led to a great disaster.

Due to the changes in time, the domain of the disaster might become limited now but breach of human rights is the same, regardless of the number of people who become victimized in the process.

Ali Khamenei and his collaborators know very well that they will never become a nuclear power. They certainly do not have the national interest of Iranian in their mind; they just use the nuclear issue to bully the countries in the region and export their revolution and middle-aged culture to other countries. Obviously, you and European countries do not give the Islamic regime any concession unless you are certain that they comply with the agreement. The Islamic regime of Iran will certainly prolong the verification period the same way that they have delayed and prolonged the nuclear talks. It is in this period that the wounded regime will retaliate with its destructive policies.

The countless breaches of human rights violations, spreading of Islamic fundamentalism, intervention and creating crisis in the Middle East are all unacceptable and contrary to democratic and humane beliefs of yours and ours.

While we can, with some measure of decisiveness and courage, uproot the wicked tree of the Islamic regime of Iran, just settling for cutting its branches is nothing more than avoiding responsibility.

It is clear that the eradication of the Islamic regime of Iran is the responsibility and mission of Iranian people and specially the opposition abroad; however, by putting obstacles in front of Iranian people and the Iranian opposition abroad one prevents them from doing their task.

The Islamic regime of Iran, based on their deceptive nature have sent their mercenaries abroad and even managed to recruit and manipulate some American-Iranians. Individuals who out of self-interest are lobbying for the Islamic regime of Iran and hiding its true nature and giving a false picture of its intentions; in the same manner that while Khomeini was in France, the so-called Iranian intellectuals did not let people of Iran and the world, realize the true meaning “the Islamic republic”. Those so-called intellectuals polished the remarks of Khomeini and converted them to positive, popular, strong and victorious ones.

We see that unfortunately in your country and your state media (the Persian section of Voice of America) and especially in UK (the Persian section of BBC) the remarks of the opposition of Islamic regime of Iran are being censored and instead the indecent habit of analyzing and relaying statements of the Islamic regime of Iran have become a norm.

I have a deep understanding and insight of the habits, morals and true indentions of this regime and I find it necessary to let you and the world know that the true evil of the Islamic regime of Iran is far more damaging and dangerous to be resolved by just signing an agreement.

People who have always lied, deceived and believe in Taqiya**, people whose main goal is supremacy and domination over others can never be trusted.

Instead they should be confronted with the very basic principles that have led to their criminality

and

To put an end on breaching of human rights violations; in other words, an end to Qisas***, random executions, discrimination, suppression of dissent, media repression, religious and ideological hegemony.

Devolving power to the people and the abolition of restrictive laws, such as mandatory supervision in elections.

Giving freedom to religious minorities and repealing laws limiting the choice of thought and religion.

Cancelling the assassination orders of dissidents in the world that have resulted in the killing of journalists, writers and even cartoonists.

I believe that any agreement or concession that is not associated with these basic conditions in reality will only be assisting this regime in achieving its indecent goals.

The possible disaster following this kind of hesitation will be similar to the historical mistake made prior to the Second World War.

Ali Khamenei will not be satisfied with the little that he has today and surely, and in all secrecy, at the first possible moment will attempt to bully and dominate.

Removing the crippling sanctions without fundamental changes in this regime will not be in Iran’s interest and will only facilitates the Islamic regime of Iran in reaching its objectives.

United States of America and Europe should not jeopardize their long-term interests due to short-term ones.

There are powerful and pro-active forces in the Iranian opposition and if the censorship of the media that are supporting the Islamic regime of Iran were to be removed, the opposition can easily organize and assist the powerful civil disobedience of Iranian people.

Iranian people want peace and freedom; without this regime not only can they ensure the resurrection of a civilized country but also a peaceful region.

I am really proud of my alma mater Dartmouth College today — and not because they recently banned hard liquor on campus. (That has its pluses and minuses.) From The Daily Mail:

If Dartmouth College students have the same inflated influence on presidential politics that they’ve traditionally enjoyed, Hillary Clinton has some long days ahead in New Hampshire.

Of a randomly selected group of 50 students who said they followed presidential politics enough to comment, just nine told Daily Mail Online that the former secretary of state would make a good U.S. chief executive.

Hillary’s detractors were far more passionate than her fans – a potential problem since she needs a repeat of her grassroots-driven upset 2008 victory here in order to solidify her status as the Democrats’ standard-bearer.

Stacey Benton, a government major from Florida who leans Republican, said a President Hillary Clinton is ‘just going to continue a lot of things Obama has been doing.’

‘There hasn’t been much good in Obama’s foreign policy,’ Benton added.

She called Clinton ‘grizzled’ from a life in politics and said that ‘just because she’s a woman doesn’t mean she should be president.’

Bravo, Stacey, and bravo, Dartmouth. Maybe those high SAT scores mean something after all. It also could be that after years of tedious Boomer BS, undergraduates are starting to wake up and rebel in the opposite direction. That’s what youth does. (BTW, this is a small poll but on a percentage basis of the Dartmouth community not so small.) The Daily Mail continues:

Twenty-two of the 50 Dartmouth students interviewed on Sunday mentioned the deadly 2012 terror attacks in Benghazi, Libya as a black mark on Clinton’s record.

Many of them, like freshman Cameron Poole, weren’t old enough to drive when it happened.

‘I think there was blood on her hands,’ Poole told Daily Mail Online, referring to Clinton’s handling of an Islamist terror group’s military-style assault that laid waste to a State Department facility.

It seems like she wants the job more than she would be good at it.

Dartmouth College student Robert Stackhouse on Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions

He said he believes Clinton’s performance before, during and after should disqualify her from holding higher office.

None of my liberal friends like to talk politics anymore. They have nothing to say and it’s obvious why. Liberalism… or progressivism — people who wish to make the distinction can go ahead, but I find it trivial — they’re just different degrees of a self-serving lie…. liberalism, in the immortal words of Preston Sturges, “is not only dead, it’s decomposed.” (Sturges was referring to chivalry.) Not only is there no there there (as Gertrude Stein said of Oakland), there’s no there there there there to the tenth power. I asked a liberal the other day what liberalism was, what exactly it was he supported, and he was stunned that I asked, and then he was just stunned. He didn’t know how to answer because he didn’t have one. It was just a habit. (Oh, I forgot. He said he didn’t like Republicans, which of course is no defense of liberalism, just contempt… with a soupçon of habit.)

And speaking of habits, that’s what Hillary Clinton is. No one, including Hillary, knows why she is running for president. Oh, yes, I think she mumbled something about making things better for the middle class from her tony Chappaqua redoubt, tennis court and bathrooms en suite. (Hey, give the lady a break — she flew coach at least once in the last twenty years.) It reminds me of a famous line from Daniel Cohn-Bendit of the Six de Nanterre that inspired the French student revolt of ’68 — “I want a revolution where everyone can drink cappuccino at the Café Royal.” Hillary could revise it. ”I want a revolution where everyone can eat a burrito bowl at Chipotle and not tip!” Tips are so bourgeois.

And now things are about to get even worse with a new book coming out May 5 – Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, by Peter Schweizer. The New York Times, which itself seems to be getting a bit nervous (will they drop her?),describes the book as “a 186-page investigation of donations made to the Clinton Foundation by foreign entities.” They add:

From 2001 to 2012, the Clintons’ income was at least $136.5 million, Mr. Schweizer writes, using a figure previously reported in The Post. “During Hillary’s years of public service, the Clintons have conducted or facilitated hundreds of large transactions” with foreign governments and individuals, he writes. “Some of these transactions have put millions in their own pockets.”

$136.5 million? That’s a whole lot of Chipotle. Maybe they should just bite the bullet and buy the chain.